Victims (3 page)

He drank some Coke. Licked his lips.

Milo said, “So what can you tell us about Vita Berlin?”

“What can I tell you,” Belleveaux echoed. “That’s a complicated question.”

“Why’s that, sir?”

“She wasn’t the easiest … okay, look, I don’t want to be speaking bad of the dead. ’Specially someone who—what happened to her. No one deserves that.
No
one, no matter what.”

I said, “She had a difficult personality.”

“So you know what I’m talking about.”

I didn’t deny it. “Being her landlord could get complicated,” I prompted.

Belleveaux picked up the soda can. “Does what I tell you go in some kind of record?”

Milo said, “There’s a problem with that?”

“I don’t want to get sued.”

“By who?”

“Someone in her family.”

“They’re difficult as well?”

“Don’t know,” said Belleveaux. “Never met them. I just believe in being prepared, ounce of prevention and all that.”

“No particular reason you’re worried about being sued.”

“No, but those kinds of things,” said Belleveaux. “Traits. Orneriness. Runs in families, right? Like Emmaline. My mother-in-law. Her sisters are all like her, scrappy, always ready to tussle. It’s like stepping into a cage of badgers.”

“Vita Berlin threatened to sue you?”

“About a million times.”

“What for?”

“Anything that bothered her,” said Belleveaux. “Leaky roof, she doesn’t get a call-back in an hour, I’ll sue you. Torn carpet, I’m at risk of tripping and breaking my neck, fix it fast or I’ll sue you. That’s why I got irked when she demanded I show up for the toilet and wasn’t there when she said she’d be. That’s why I decided to use my key and go in there and fix it. Even though I knew she’d call me up and bitch about entering the premises without her permission. Which the landlord association says I can do at my discretion for just cause. Which includes reasonable repairs requested by the tenant. Turns out the toilet was fine.”

Milo said, “You went into the bathroom?”

“I listened while I was looking at her. I know it’s crazy but I couldn’t move for a few seconds, just stood there trying not to hurl my breakfast. And it was quiet, toilet’s out of whack you hear it. So I thought about that: It wasn’t even broken.”

I said, “Vita enjoyed giving you a hard time.”

“Don’t know if she enjoyed it, but she sure did it.”

“Did you try to evict her?”

Belleveaux laughed. “No grounds, that’s the way the law works. To get evicted, a tenant’s just about got to …” He stopped short. “I was going to say they’ve got to kill someone. Oh, man, this is terrible.”

I said, “Seven years, eight months.”

“I bought the building four years five months ago, she came with it. I thought that meant good, long-term stable tenant. Then I learned different. Basically, she thought she owned it and I was her janitor.”

“Entitled,” I said.

“That’s a nice word for it,” he said.

“Cranky lady.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll come out and say it: She was a miserable specimen, didn’t have a good word for anyone. It’s like she had bile in her veins instead of blood. My guess is you’re not going to have too many people crying. Disgusted, yes, scared, yes. But not crying.”

“Disgusted by …”

“What happened to her.” Belleveaux’s eyes clamped shut again. The lids twitched. “Man,
no
one deserves
that
.”

“But no one’s going to mourn.”

“Maybe she’s got some family who’ll mourn,” he said. “But no one who had anything to do with her is going to say they miss her. I’m not stating that for a fact, I’m just guessing, but I’d put money on my guess. You want to see what I mean, go over to Bijou, it’s a coffee shop on Robertson. She ate there from time to time, made their lives miserable. Same for the Feldmans, the downstairs tenants. Nice young couple, they’ve been here a year, are ready to move ’cause of her.”

“Neighbors’ dispute.”

“No dispute, she harassed them. They’re on the bottom floor, she’s on top but
she’s
the one complaining about footsteps. Actually made me come up to her place to listen a bunch of times, all I heard was her bitching, she’s saying, ‘See, hear that, Stan? They’re clomping around like barbarians.’ Then she lies down puts her ear to the carpet, makes me do it. That position, maybe I pick up a little sound but nothing serious. But I lie, tell her I’ll talk to them. Just to keep her out
of my hair, you know? I did nothing about it, she dropped it. The next time, it’s something else—they fill the trash bins too high, they park their cars wrong, she thinks they snuck in a cat and it’s a no-pet building. What happened was there was a stray cat came to the back door, looked like it was starving, they gave it some milk. Which is the human thing to do, right? Now the Feldmans are going to leave for sure and I’ll have both units vacant. Should’ve put my pension money in gold bars or something.”

Milo said, “Sounds like Vita was a little paranoid.”

“That’s a word for it,” said Belleveaux. “But it was more like she wanted attention and being mean was a way to get it.”

“She have any friends?”

“None I ever saw.”

“And you live across the street.”

“Part of the problem. She knew where to find me. Here I was thinking the building would be perfect, convenient, no need to drive. Next time I buy, it’s in another state. Not that there’ll be a next time. Market was up, I’d sell everything.”

“What can you tell us about her daily routine?”

“From what I saw she kept to herself, didn’t go out much.”

“Except for meals.”

“Once in a while she’d walk over to Bijou. I know because I’ve been there myself, saw her a couple times. Cheap and good, I’d be there more but the wife’s into cooking, takes lessons, likes to try stuff out. Now it’s French, that’s why I’m not skinny like I used to be.”

Milo said, “Vita eat anywhere else besides Bijou?”

“Mostly what I saw was takeout,” said Belleveaux. “From the boxes she’d throw out in the garbage. I know because she’d miss, I’d have to pick them up. The automated trucks they use nowadays, it’s not in the can, it stays there and I don’t want rats.”

“What kind of takeout?”

“What I saw was pizza boxes. So I guess she liked pizza.”

“From where?”

“Where? I don’t know—I think Domino’s, they’re the ones in the blue hats, right? Maybe other places, I don’t know. It’s not like I was checking out her eating habits through the drapes. The less I had to do with her, the better.”

“Did she get pizza delivered last night?”

“Wouldn’t know,” said Belleveaux. “I was at Staples, watching the Lakers take one from Utah. Went with my boys, they’re both master sergeants in the army, had leave the same week, we did a basketball thing and later we went to Philippe’s for some grub.” He touched his belt buckle. “Overdid it with the French dip, but how many times do you get to go out with your kids, do guy stuff, everyone’s being a grown-up? Got home late, slept late till seven, got her message on the machine, why didn’t I come yesterday after the first call, the toilet’s busted, it’s her right to have a functional toilet, all the fixtures are old and cheap and lousy, if I’m not going to replace them the least I can do is repair them in a timely manner, I’d best be there no later than eight a.m. or she’s filing a complaint.”

Milo said, “What time did she call you?”

“I didn’t check.”

“Message still on the machine?”

“Nah, I erased it.”

“Can you narrow it down?”

“Hmm,” said Belleveaux. “Well, I left for the game around four, stopped by at the Soos’ apartment to look at an electrical outlet, so it had to be after that.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Close to midnight. Drove Anthony and Dmitri to where they parked their rental car in the Union Station lot, Anthony drove Dmitri to the airport then he drove himself to Fort Irwin.”

“When you got home were Vita Berlin’s lights on?”

“Let’s see … can’t rightly say. She paid her own electric, what she did with her lights was her own business.”

“Where can we find the Feldmans?”

“They’re good kids, still don’t know about this.”

“Why’s that?”

“Probably at work, they’re doctors—resident doctors. He’s at Cedars, she’s somewhere else, maybe the U., I’m not sure.”

“First names?”

“David and Sondra with an
o
. Trust me, they had nothing to do with this.”

“Doctors,” said Milo. Thinking:
surgical cut
.

Stanleigh Belleveaux said, “Exactly. Respectable.”

CHAPTER
4

B
y the time we left Belleveaux’s house a crime lab van was parked outside the tape. Two techs, both young men, were inside the apartment. Their kits rested out on the landing. The body remained in place.

Milo said, “Lance, Kenny.”

“Lieutenant,” said the taller man.
L. Sakura
on his tag. “This sure is disgusting.”

K. Flores
didn’t react.

Milo said, “Keeps life interesting. Don’t let me stop you.”

Flores said, “How far do you want us to take this?”

“As far as you need to.”

“What I mean, Lieutenant, is there’s no sign of disruption in the room, it all seems centered on the body. Obviously we’ll print and look for fibers but do you see any reason to luminol?”

Sakura said, “Looks way too clean even for someone doing a mop-up. No bleach smell, either. We’ll check the drains, call in a forensic
plumber if the fixtures give us a problem, but we don’t see much chance for significant blood evidence.”

“Other than
her
blood,” said Flores. “Which is probably the small spots on the towel. Even there, whoever did this was super-careful. Probably dabbed as he went and took whatever he used with him.”

“This is a freak,” said Sakura.

Milo said, “C.I. said most of the blood is pooled inside the body. Let’s see what you pull up print- and fiber-wise then we’ll talk about spraying.”

Flores said, “We pulled up one thing so far, probably no big deal.”

“What?”

“A note in the bedroom. We left it there.”

After donning new gloves and foot coverings, we followed Flores in while Sakura began fiddling with his kit.

Vita Berlin’s sleeping chamber was close, dim, spare, with walls also painted apartment-beige and linens of the same characterless hue. Double bed, no headboard or footboard, no personal touches. The books Milo had described were piled high on a white fiberboard nightstand. The surface of a three-door dresser was bare. Two more beehive lamps.

She hadn’t indulged others or herself.

Flores pointed to the foot of the bed where a rumpled scrap of white paper rested. “It was underneath, I took a photo of it there, then slid it out.”

We kneeled, read. In neat script someone had written:

Dr. B. Shacker

Below that, a 310 number. A diagonal line slashed the name. At the bottom of the page, a single word in larger, darker caps:

QUACK!!!

Flores said, “There’s dust and maybe crumbs down there but nothing weird.”

Milo copied down the information. “Thanks, Kenny, bag it.”

Back on the landing, he said, “Might as well talk to this doctor.” Half smiling. “Maybe he’s a surgeon.”

He 411’d, got a listing.

“Bernhard Shacker, Ph.D. North Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills. A colleague, Alex: That makes it a bit more interesting, no? Vita obviously had what you guys call issues, maybe she decided to get some help, tried out therapy, changed her mind. What’s that phrase you use about screwed-up folk resisting the most?”

“Baloney afraid of the slicer.”

“But she got sliced anyway. Maybe Shacker can educate us on her personality. Know him?”

I shook my head.

“Bedford Drive,” he said. “That’s high-ticket Couch Row, seems a little froufrou for someone who lived like Vita did.” Phoning Shacker’s number, he listened, frowned, clicked off.

“Recorded spiel,” he said. “I like your way better.”

I still use an answering service because talking to human beings is at the core of my job. “You didn’t leave a message.”

“Didn’t want to scare him off, in case he gets all pissy about confidentiality. Also I figured maybe talking to him is something you could do. One mind-prober to another.”

“While we’re at it, we can figure out transmigration of the soul.”

“Wouldn’t put it past you, amigo. So you’ll do it?”

I smiled.

He said, “Great, let’s check out that restaurant.”

He left his unmarked at the crime scene and we drove west to Robertson in my Seville. Bijou: A Dining Place was a brown-brick storefront
set close enough to the 10 Freeway to harvest soot on its signage. The brick was grimy, too, but a picture window sparkled.

The morning special was blueberry pancakes. Posted hours said
Breakfast and Lunch Only, Closed by Three p.m
.

The restaurant’s interior said it was probably a venerable diner remodeled to look even older. From the freshness of the green vinyl seating and the laminate tabletops patterned to look like Formica, a recent upgrade. The kind of movie-star headshots you see in dry cleaners hung on the walls, along with black-and-white shots of pre-freeway L.A.

An old man reading
The Wall Street Journal
sat at the counter, nursing coffee and a sweet roll. Three of seven booths were occupied: Up in front, two young moms tried to chat while tending to bibbed, squirming toddlers in booster chairs. Behind them, a husky apple-faced man in his thirties ate steak and eggs while penciling a puzzle book. At the back, a brown-uniformed parcel driver small enough to be a jockey worked on a mountain of pancakes while grooving to his iPod. Both men looked up when we entered, returned to their recreation. The women were too busy with their kids to notice.

A waitress, young, blond, shapely, sleeve-tattooed, had the shift to herself. A short-order cook with an Incan face sweated behind the pass-through.

Milo waited until the waitress had refilled Wall Street’s coffee before approaching.